Stevenage Borough versus Queens Park Rangers
Pre-Season Friendly
 Saturday 19th July 2008
Kick Off 15:00

Iain Dowie has indicated that Adam Bolder and Danny Nardiello could be given a chance to revive their R's careers whilst fans will be hopeful of catching an early glimpse of all our new signings, including Radek Cerny and Peter Ramage.

BOROUGH IN BRIEF: An ambitious club who will be aiming to finally make the step up to league football by the end of the coming campaign. Having been formed from the ashes of Stevenage Athletic in the 70's, Boro climbed the league pyramid reaching The Conference in 1994.

They have come close to promotion on two previous occasions, in 2005 they were beaten in the play off final by Carlisle whilst in 1996 they actually won the league but were denied promotion due to their ground not being up to Football League standards.

Considering some of the hell holes I've been to watching Rangers, this still seems harsh! However having since invested heavily in turning Broadhall Way into a fine little venue they will have no such problems should they finish in top spot this season.

THE MANAGER: Graham Westley is currently enjoying his second spell in charge at Broadhall Way and after coming within one game of promotion to the football league he will be looking to complete the job this time around.  In his first spell he saved Boro from dropping out of the Conference before building a decent squad and taking them to that 2005 play off game.

He returned to take charge for a second time three months ago after the high profile appointment of Peter Taylor didn't work out. Something almost everyone who has employed him has found out. Will they ever learn?

ONE TO WATCH:  Having featured for Rangers during a 2002 loan spell from Fulham and been something of a disaster I will be keeping an eye on Callum Willock as no doubt he'll turn in a performance of Alan Shearer standards on Saturday afternoon!

Willock had spells with Peterborough, Brentford and Port Vale after leaving Fulham in 2003 but he decided to drop out of the league to sign for Stevenage in January 2008 despite being offered a new contract to stay at Vale Park.

RANDOM FACT: Stevenage have had three of the Sodje brothers on their books. Efe featured between 1994 and 1997 when he joined Macclesfield whilst Sam and Akpo both appeared in the early part of this century before moving onto Margate.

LAST TIME OUT:  "Gallen grabbed Rangers fourth with just under twenty minutes left to go. Shabba showed great tenacity to work an opening and Julian did well to parry his deflected rising drive. A defensive mix up then saw the ball come to Gallen and he slotted it away with the minimum of fuss."
Stevenage 1 - 4 QPR, Saturday 19th July 2006.

HEAD TO HEAD

Adam Miller made Stevenage his new home when he left QPR in 2006 to return to non league football whilst Tony Thorpe also joined Boro following his release from Loftus Road a year earlier. He didn't stay long though, after only making three appearances he moved back to the Football League with Grimsby.

Richard "Mr Steel Hammer" Hill managed Boro from 1998 to 2000, our former youth team boss Joe Gallen played for them in 1997 and Richard Pacquette had loan spell in 2002 whilst still at QPR.